Cincinnati museum celebrates the history of small businesses through their signs

Cincinnati — All his life, Tod Swormstedt has been fascinated, not necessarily by American small businesses, but by their signs, which announce to all the world — or at least the folks on Main Street — “we’re here.”

That interest prompted Swormstedt in 1999 to found the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati.

The museum is a collection of more than a century of entrepreneurship and ambition. A few of the businesses are still around, but the vast majority are not.

“To me, it’s all about small business, the heart of America,” Swormstedt told CBS News. 

The museum says it has more than 800 signs, 1,500 photographs, 175 pieces of artwork and 300 tools that celebrate American signage.     

It’s a reminder of the moxie it has always taken to start something new, and the good fortune when it lasts.

“The memory of the business is alive and well here through their signs,” Swormstedt said.

Around one last corner, we found Tom Wartman and Bing Reising, professional benders — as the craft of neon sign-making is known — who created a new American sign for a classic American company, “CBS Evening News.”